


Look at You, Out to Make a Deal

by Suzume



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: 5 Times, F/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4148334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four women Roy let buy his dinner and one he spent his own money on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look at You, Out to Make a Deal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [likeadeuce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Straight from the Mold, Ready to be Sold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/262964) by [likeadeuce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce). 
  * In response to a prompt by [likeadeuce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce) in the [remixmadness2015](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2015) collection. 



> Or: Look at You, Out to Make a Deal (the rural flâneur summer remix)  
> Title is, like that of the original fic, from the song "Gone" by Jack Johnson.

          "And where did you say _Mr._ Cavelli is off working?"

         "Off in Liddle, in the northeast. He's in the materiel business- doing well, but not well enough to move us to the city." Iris dropped her ashes into the little porcelain ashtray on the table. "-Or so he says," she sighed, "Not East City, let alone Central." It was clear to Roy that she didn't believe it. He didn't have enough information to have much of an opinion either way, but he was hardly going to work to dissuade her of it. If Iris thought her husband was hiding money from her, secreting it away, spending it on other women or another hidden vice, it was only going to make her feel more justified in picking up his tab.

         "You'd rather you were out with him?" Roy suggested, feigning hurt.

         "Oh, sweetie," the woman was quick to change her tone, "It's been twenty years since I last had the sort of time I had with Antony that I have with you."

         "Well, all work and no play…" Roy chuckled, running a finger along her stocking, from her knee, up to the hem of her embroidered purple dress, then moved a little further, buckling the fabric up to expose about an inch more thigh.

 

*****

 

         "Do you smoke when you go out into town?" Riza asked.

         "What?" It took Roy a moment to understand why she would even think to ask him something like that. "No." Smoking was far too expensive a habit for someone with his pocket money budget. Sure, sometimes he'd accept a cigarette from one of the women he left the Gilded Lily with, but books and clothes were fair more tantalizing targets to spending his savings on.

         They were _investments_ , he told himself, pleasures now that would spawn more pleasures later. If he bought nice clothes, he wouldn't just feel good about how he looked (though that was certainly true and significant), he would be that much likelier to meet the sorts of people he wanted to meet and be allowed into the places he wanted to go. And knowledge gained from those books would take him places as well, although they were probably different places than he'd go with the clothes.

         The 'why do you ask?' in his head must have been written plainly on his face because Riza addressed it unasked. "The scent hit me pretty strongly when I went to get the unwashed laundry."

         "…It's from sitting inside with smokers where I'm eating," Roy explained, "Close quarters. The scent sticks to my clothes."

         "Yes," she agreed, "Some scents do that…"

         Suddenly Roy found himself wondering what other scents she might have caught a whiff of and recognized…

        

*****

 

         Roy knew that Amy Leighton was aware he had let her win, but since that was what they both wanted, what did it matter? Amy preferred to win, whether it was via skill or luck or someone else not playing the game to the best of their ability for her benefit, and Roy preferred for Amy to be happy. If the outcome turned too sour, Amy stormed out of the Gilded Lily, sometimes conveniently "forgetting" to pay for her drinks. And while Bruce, behind the counter, knew that Amy was good for it and would pick up the tab the next time she came in, he was unwilling to extend to Roy the same benefit of the doubt (and in such a small town, Roy was loathe to try and turn on the same charm he employed towards the local women toward Bruce and his pencil mustache, because if he'd guessed wrong…).

         The bigger Amy won, the more she people she paid for. That was how Roy had met her the first time- he'd had the good fortune of taking a seat just before a giddy order that she would be buying the next round for everyone in the place issued from high rollers' corner and, while happy to accept, he also had to know who it was immediately turning such a large portion of her winnings back around into the establishment.

         Amy had a son about his age away in East City attending a prestigious prep school. She also had two daughters in their twenties, but both of them had married and moved away. Her husband made a living selling…tractors? Combines? Something like that. Some kind of mechanized farming equipment. He sounded like a perfectly reliable fellow, if on the boring side. Mr. Leighton was aware of at least the basic gist of Amy's hobbies- the drinking, the card games and the subsequent betting on them. He probably didn't know about the flirting on that went on between his wife and Roy though. Really, with the two of them it was only flirting though and could be backpedaled on easily enough if any friction arose about it.

         "You always know just how to best play your hand to give me a little boost," Amy chuckled.

         "Maybe that speaks to how much better your luck is than mine."

         Amy had remarked to him before regarding how much less there was to occupy her mind around the house since her children had all moved out; how there was even less cleaning to do without her son bringing dirt in on his shoes. Mr. Leighton didn't mind the new quiet, but Amy, though she had long since resigned herself to life as a housewife, grew bored.

         The clothes she wore- they tended towards blacks and grays- had probably flattered her figure better around ten years ago when they had probably been bought, but her amber ringlets were still in fashion and she didn't let any gray stray far past her roots. And it wasn't as if she didn't wear makeup, it just tended toward the less ostentatious side compared to Iris or Pauline. Roy could tell her she looked classy and, compared with a good swath of the people they both knew from the Gilded Lily, she would know he meant it (not to say he thought anything less of the look of those other ladies- it was just that they intended their makeup to accentuate some other aspect of them).

         Amy always said things like, "Oh, if only your mother knew what you were up to out here, young man."

         And, substituting his living (and lively) aunt for his deceased mother, Roy laughed to himself because she might not be glad, but there would be no disputing that it meant he had learned well.

 

*****

 

         Roy had never seen Riza wear any makeup aside from a little lipgloss one evening after she came home from an excursion with some school friends. It brought a welcome hint of happy color to her usually pale and somber face, though he supposed some of that came from spending time with people she liked too.

         He wondered whether or not the students were allowed to wear makeup to school. He really had no idea what girls' schools were like. …They probably weren't much like raunchy rumors of boys back in the city though.

         Knowing Master Hawkeye, it didn't matter what the official opinions of the school were. Makeup had nothing to do with learning or alchemy, thus, for an intelligent girl, it was a waste of time and money. He struck Roy as alternately neglectful and too strict with Riza, but he wanted to continue his studies here, so as long as he wasn't hurting her, Roy would keep telling himself it was none of his business.

         Where did Riza go with her friends when she went out? He knew what sorts of things the women he met at the Gilded Lily sought out- what was Riza searching for?

 

*****

 

         Amy left early after receiving a call from her husband that her son had returned home for his two week summer vacation sooner than they had expected.

         Roy drifted from the more sedate bets to a farther corner of the place where less decorum would earn him more accolades. Iris had brought along a friend he didn't know. From the way she spoke, gesturing toward him, Roy assumed Iris was pointing him out as he approached.

         "Does he sing for his supper?" the friend asked, her attention clearly snared.

         "Hmm, I don't know," Iris looked at him, "Would you sing if we asked you to, Roy? I don't know, Rita, I think he already knows how to do something much better."

         Rita batted her eyelashes, flashing her green and gold-rimmed eyelids, "This young man has enough experience that you'd rate him so highly, Iris? I have to admit I'm kind of curious. …Maybe some sort of preview?"

         "I perform better with a good meal in my stomach," Roy suggested coyly.

         Rita patted the empty seat to her right, "All right, young man, what's your pleasure?"

         "My name's Roy, ma'am," he leaned easily back into the plush cushion, "And when I'm getting ready for a big job, if it's an option, I tend to like to treat myself to a steak." It was a lot to ask for, but this seemed like a better spot than most for making a gamble. He didn't even have a response planned out in case she said no.

        

         The steak was a bit more rare than he had asked for, but Roy took it in stride, keeping up his facade of laid-back decadence.

        

         In the alleyway between the Gilded Lily and the tailor shop next door, Rita's mouth tasted just as raw- lively, red, wine-tinged. Overzealous teeth broke the skin so that a drop of blood rose on his lip, but soon enough Rita had kissed it away.

         He had liked Trixie- the barmaid from the Silver Lining who had given him the scoop on this place- better, but a deal was a deal. Trixie wanted a rich man who could take her away; Rita would take a poor boy who could bring her excitement. Her dangling gold earrings clicked against the tailor's wall as she fell into his sway.

 

*****

 

         Roy wasn't all that much older than Riza- certainly not so far removed from that time that he didn't remember the kind of thoughts that occupied his mind at that age. He wondered what kind of boys she daydreamed about- or girls. On the one hand, he sort of thought she had a little of a thing for him, but, on the other hand, he had a track record of overestimating his own desirability.

         For his part, Roy did find her to be an interesting girl, a hard worker, intelligent.

         Because he was grateful to have been taken in and taught by Master Hawkeye he didn't spend much time wondering why she wasn't the one striving toward flame alchemy. She probably had other interests; other dreams (she seemed to do a lot of writing; maybe she wanted to do something with that?). …Her own ways for trying to reach them.

 

*****

 

         The part Xingese woman was a traveling saleswoman, merely passing through town. Roy had learned her name as long as he had needed to know it, but there was only so much need for electric waffle irons in any given town and, seeing how low the odds were he would ever see her again, he allowed it to slip from his mind. Her long, silky hair and perfectly manicured nails stuck around much longer.

 

*****

 

         Without any prelude Roy was aware of, a letter arrived that stirred Master Hawkeye from the note-lined nest of his study. Riza popped in and out of her father's bedroom, small hands darting in to add necessities- socks, a comb, a toothbrush- to his eccentric packing. The way Master Hawkeye went on without so much as a glance in her direction, Roy wondered if he even noticed her.

         "I'm going to Kolde to confer with several colleagues. I'll be gone for two nights-"

         Roy had never received the impression that Master Hawkeye considered any living alchemists colleagues, but he stopped himself short of saying anything snide about it. With a tongue that worked quicker than his brain, whenever conversations with his master turned away from pure science, Roy had a tendency to skate right out into the middle of thin ice. Master Hawkeye didn't snap at him, but Roy couldn't help but imagine that beneath his eternally unimpressed and humorless facade anger boiled like geothermal energy.

         "-I don't expect any visitors or packages in my absence-"

         Roy caught Riza's eye as she carefully slid several coins into her father's wallet, one at a time. He found himself musing on whether or not they had come from her own private savings (he had overheard the clinking of her slipping some into a tin one day- after, with the sound of metal sliding over metal, he thought she had slipped the cache under bed).

         One day, his studies completed, Roy would leave this dully and dingy place. He had come with the expectation that he might stay a long time, but it was, after all, merely an interlude in what he hoped would be a long and interesting life. With his wits and his alchemy, he would make his way in this world. …but Riza… How would she leave?

         "I have some choice words in mind for Dolores and Henry, allowing their studies to be tainted by the state and its funding-"

         Roy waggled his eyebrows and Riza cracked the slightest of smiles.

         Master Hawkeye noticed Roy, but not Riza, and fell silent as he glared, dropping his diatribe against the State Alchemists of his acquaintance and their disregard for the purity of learning for learning's sake (whoever Dolores and Henry were and whatever their flaws, Roy imagined they were at least not financially insolvent).

 

         Master Hawkeye declined all invitations to be seen off at the train station. Mr. Burnell from the corner store came by with his rusted-up car to give him a ride.

         Things were even quieter than usual after that, though not without a feeling that the atmosphere had changed. Roy kept on watching Riza out of the corner of his eye as she put away dishes and did her homework and all the other completely ordinary things that comprised her time at home. She didn't slack off with her father gone (four hours without Master Hawkeye and that was _all_ Roy had done), but it seemed as though she stood a little straighter; breathed a little easier.

         Not that she exactly became cheerful. It was a shame to see someone so young so joyless. It left Roy wondering if all of her life had been like this.

         When she moved at last to clear her books and set the table, a familiar weight slowing her step, Roy found a reason not to remain quiet any longer. It was up to Master Hawkeye whether or not to treat his daughter like housekeeper, but Roy wasn't here for anyone to serve him for free (he had no qualms about others handling chores for him- he just wanted to be able to pay for their services).

         "We don't have to stay in," he said and Riza stopped midway across the room with two plates in her hands. "We could go out to eat."

         She looked…skeptical.

         "What? I don't mean at Kasper's, if that's what you're thinking. The Silver Lining, as you may or may not know, also serves something other than liquor."

         "That's-" For just a moment Roy saw her open up and hope, then, even faster than that light lit her eyes, she smothered it. "That's expensive."

         Hope was a flame. And wasn't that what he was studying?

         "I believe I have the largesse to account for that," he grinned, reaching for his wallet to flash her a few bills if she needed proof.

         Though Riza couldn't resist smiling in return, no immediate acceptance seemed forthcoming. It was as though she appreciated the thought, but could go no further.

         "It's my treat," Roy insisted, picking away at her defenses one bit at a time, sure that underneath that armor there was a girl, however serious and capable, that would enjoy doing something special at least this once. …Did she think her father would be annoyed? Master Hawkeye would never have to know. …Was she afraid of owing him?

         "Consider it a gift."

         Riza turned and put the plates back into the cupboard. "Thank you, I accept."


End file.
